Diesel & Deutschland
by The Curious Kills
Summary: Six friends gather in a study room at their campus library to wreak havoc on a new campaign designed by their very creative DM. This campaign, completely rewritten for a dieselpunk spy epic set in the thick of World War Two, holds many surprises for the ornery players as the DM struggles to keep their crazy, improbable characters focused on the actual plot. (HH A/U)
1. Character Building

SESSION ZERO – Character Building

_Author's Note: Jack Radke, Sarah Nordenstern, Liam Whitt, Dora Nguyen, Eli Gradney and Brian Stupka are my original creations. They do not belong to any show, series or fandom and are inspired by dear friends in the tabletop gaming community. _

James Nicholas Radke – or Jack, as he preferred – checked the clock on his cellphone for the third time since 12PM. He and his girlfriend, Sarah Nordenstern, had arrived twenty minutes ago with all the reference books, character charts and spare dice they could possibly need and had finished putting everything in order for the first session* of the new campaign* only five minutes after their arrival. The room they had reserved at the campus library was theirs until 3PM, but, knowing the other players, it would take at least an hour and a half to get everybody quiet for a single minute so he could explain what he had in mind for the new campaign.

He was, admittedly, a bit nervous about this one. He wasn't usually lacking in confidence when it came to introducing a new campaign, having had loads of practice designing them since he was a kid, playing the good old Third Edition with his grandpa back in the day. However, this campaign was a little… different, to say the least, and he'd kept most of its unique qualities to himself as a surprise for the other players, Sarah being the only one who knew more than the barest hint of what was in store for them. All Jack had been gracious enough to share with the other players was that it was an off-brand mod inspired in part by the largely successful Tephra*; anybody who knew anything about the tabletop gaming world – or Google – could guess what that implied.

"Where the fuck are they?" he muttered, tapping one of the character tokens against the table in irritation. He was beginning to worry that they would bail, which would really suck considering all the effort he'd put in already. The mere thought made him want to call up his fellow nerds and give them a scalding piece of his ginger-colored mind; so many NPCs*, customized enemies, mission-specific loot and random encounters, all gone to waste because they couldn't be bothered to show up at 12:30 like they were supposed to -

"I see Liam."

Sarah's voice led Jack to look away from the opposite wall at which he'd been seething and take a glance through the transparent, window-like walls of the free study room. Sure enough, there was Liam Whitt, striding forth with purpose from the top of the library stairs across the floor. Behind him emerged Eli Gradney, followed almost immediately by the copper-skinned, smiling form of the matchstick girl herself, Dora Nguyen. As usual, Eli had his backpack slung over his shoulder, something Jack couldn't really visualize the guy without. It was, to be honest, an inseparable part of who he was, whether it was due to the nerd's deep-seeded fear of being without his laptop for more than eight hours or an innocent habit he'd picked up from his three years as a full-time college student.

Shortly behind them, Brian Stupka's tawny, bristling head of hair emerged last, two large pizza boxes cradled in his arms and a two-liter bottle of Pepsi pinned between them and his chin. Food wasn't technically allowed in the library, but the team had yet to be kicked out of a study room for bringing lunch with them.

Sarah opened the door and waved to them as they approached, and Jack took the spare moment to see that all of his documents were in order and that all the campaign secrets were safely hidden inside Sarah's _Ao No Exorcist_ totebag.

"Hey, man," Liam said cheerfully as he entered, leaving Sarah to guide the rest of the flock inside the study room. "Sorry we're late."

"It's fine," Jack replied, still a bit peeved but happy nonetheless that the crew had shown up at all, "What kind of pizza did you get?"

"One meat-lover's and one plain cheese," Brian announced, setting the boxes down on a nearby coffee counter, "Dora's a vegetarian."

All things being equal in the presence of pizza, the nerd herd flocked to the counter to savor the heartwarming and salty fragrance of hot, fresh pizza before diffusing throughout the rest of the room. Before anyone could pose the important questions, Eli reached into his inseparable backpack and withdrew a set of paper plates and napkins, much like Mary Poppins pulling a lamp from her bottomless carpetbag. Jack had only known Eli for about a year, but even that was long enough to know that you just didn't question how the former homeschool student managed jam so many random things into a relatively ordinary object. No sooner had the plates and napkins left Eli's hands than did the geeks rise again, swarming the coffee counter and making off with one or two slices each before scattering leisurely toward the table in anticipation of the new campaign.

"So when do we start?" asked Dora, already having taken a seat beside Liam, who had placed himself confidently to the left of Jack's DM stockpile. Jack made a mental note to keep an eye on Liam; he'd known the guy since sophomore year in high school, and if there was anything sure about him, it was that he wasn't the type to ask before going through campaign-sensitive maps and charts, memorizing all the routes and DM-friendly annotations while Jack wasn't looking.

"Well," Jack replied, moving quickly to the head of the table before Liam could play with the character tokens, "That depends. I was thinking we could spend most of today working on your characters for the campaign – That way, when we get together next week, we can get started on the first mission and work our way from there."

"Can I use my character from the last campaign?" asked Liam.

The closest thing Jack had left to a soul cringed at the fleeting thought of how much work it would take to revamp Liam's old character to fit the campaign. Shia LeBuff, the neutral-evil Lizardman who couldn't go a single campaign without nibbling at the entrails of the fallen or, as Liam had put it, being the D&amp;D equivalent of "environmentally conscious", would have no place in the dieselpunk wonderland that Jack had spent most of the spring semester and the entirety of summer preparing. "No," he replied firmly, "You're going to have to make a new character."

"Can I be a gnome?" Eli inquired, "I want to be a super-intimidating rogue gnome again. That was so much fun."

"I'd rather you not," Jack hinted. Eli was a bit more compliant to the DM's wishes than Liam, on average, but he was certainly just as chaotic-neutral, if not a tiny bit more.

"Can I be a fae?" Dora suggested meekly; this would be her first real campaign, and while Jack would have preferred she try something a little more traditional first, Eli had begged Jack to let her join in, and Brian had backed him up more than 100%.

"Actually," Brian explained, adding his deep, radio-toned voice to the conversation, "There's a lot of fae races to choose from in D&amp;D. There's, like, um…"

"Gnomes," Eli mentioned, falling back on his favorite race automatically.

"Yeah, that," Brian agreed with him, "And then there's pixies and classic fairies and stuff, and then there's brownies –"

"Actually, guys," Sarah interrupted them, exchanging an understanding and supportive look with Jack, "I think this campaign's going to be a lot different from the normal D&amp;D style. You should probably check with Jack first."

"Oh yeah?" Liam interjected.

"Yeah," Jack confirmed. He took a quick glance at Sarah to thank her for sticking up for him as he continued. "I actually came up with a really cool idea that I'm pretty sure you guys are gonna love. Liam, remember what I told you about on Skype a couple weeks ago, about that city I was designing that was basically a prison colony ala Botany Bay and stuff?"

"Oh, yeah," Liam remembered, "Dude, that would make a fucking cool campaign. Is that what we're playing?"

"Yeah, kind of," Jack admitted, "I actually had a brainspark last semester and came up with a way to make it even cooler. I, uh, reworked it in a customized dieselpunk mod, kind of like what those guys did with Tephra a couple years ago, and I figured I'd turn it into a labor camp set in an alternate-universe Nazi Germany."

"Bitchin'," Liam responded, very enthusiastic about what he was hearing. "So what are we playing?"

"I've based the gameplay on the Fifth Edition*, for the most part," Jack explained, "But I'm taking out most of the non-Human characters. I want you guys to start out as POWs from the Allied side and eventually work your way up through a series of Sky-Captain, James-Bond type missions that are all interconnected to one big giant boss battle – and good luck defeating him. You're gonna need it." The inner demon of Jack's playing style bubbled to the surface, registering on the other players' radars as a forebodingly evil chuckle.

"So do our characters _have _to be Human?" Eli asked, both visibly and audibly disappointed that he couldn't be a gnome.

"You can be a very tall midget," Jack promised him dryly. A glint sparkled in Eli's brown eyes that the DM wasn't entirely sure he comfortable with, but it was gone before he could mention it. Instead, he decided to begin passing out the blank character sheets he'd printed out the night before. "These are the new character sheets you'll need to fill out. Dora, are you gonna need any help with this?"

"I… I don't know," Dora admitted with an awkward laugh, "I guess… Probably, yeah."

"Okay," Jack told her, "Well, just let me know and I'll be happy to help you. Sarah's pretty good at designing characters, too."

"I'll help you," the motherly figure volunteered, smiling encouragingly as she took a seat beside the newbie.

"Oh, one question – the last one, I swear," Dora spoke up, "Um, can I be a female?"

"Probably not," Jack answered carefully. Normally, he'd be the blunt, straight-forward asshole that he always was, but Dora seemed so very mouse-like that he didn't have the heart to be that mean to her, especially considering that this was her first game. "It really wouldn't make a lot of sense for a girl to be in a Nazi POW camp."

"Oh, okay, sorry," Dora replied with a smile before turning to Sarah for help with the rest of her character.

"Are we starting out at Level One?" Brian asked.

"I'll let you guys start out at Level Two, actually," Jack informed him, "I kind of want to skip the leveling bullshit and get straight to the missions; besides, most of the random encounters are Level Three and above anyway."

"What? Why?" Eli demanded.

Jack shrugged. "It just happened that way."

-_break_-

An hour and a half later, most of the character sheets were covered in pencil markings, scrawled notes and mathematical scribbles, a pleasantly assuring disarray that was home and country to any experienced D&amp;D player. Jack looked over Sarah's shoulder to check on how Dora was coming along with her character before asking everyone else to take a moment and share with him what sort of abominations they had come up with. Phone apps were set to the side, calculators cleared, and Eli's ever-present laptop was closed as each new character was presented, fresh from the oven of their makers' minds.

"Can I go first?" asked Liam.

"Yeah, sure."

The transgender nerd-for-life opened his mouth, started to read and then stopped, stealing a pencil from Brian's supply to fix a miscalculation in his character's bastardized skill set before resuming.

"So I decided to go for a Chaotic-Good alignment this time," Liam assured, "He's going to be a colonel in the U.S. Air Corps –"

"A colonel?" Jack questioned, alarm bells immediately warning him of possible future shenanigans.

"I promise he's not O.P.," Liam said, carefully and clearly giving his word.

"Okay," the DM sighed, throwing his hands in the air as a sign of truce, an act of misplaced trust that he was sure regret later and usually did in these types of affairs. "Carry on…"

_-break-_

**NOW IT'S YOUR TURN.**

Name your favorite episode of Hogan's Heroes in the reviews. I will choose one from the bunch and transform it into a nerdy and amusing behind-the-scenes look at what our players must have been thinking, discussing, and probably arguing about while they played out that episode! Each installment (I'll keep writing them as long as you keep suggesting them) will probably take two to three sessions to complete, although realistically it would probably take far more sessions, if my personal D&amp;D experience is anything to judge by.

I hope you like my interactive idea! Please add any further suggestions and criticism in the review with the title of your favorite episode!

_-break-_

CAMPAIGN: D&amp;D gameplay, being a story-driven, open-world RPG, is centered around the campaign, which is a long story designed by one or more DMs. Within a campaign, there are many missions and quests, random encounters with enemies, traps, and struggles that will help the players gain experience (XP), gold (GP) and loot, which will help their characters to level up and grow.

DM: Dungeon Master. The DM, also sometimes referred to as the GM (Game Master) is the god of the game, the one who holds the fate of the players' lives in his treacherous, almighty hands. He also controls most NPCs, monsters and other random encounters throughout the game with dice. A DM/GM's main goal is to see that the campaign is followed through without too much unexpected incident, although a wise DM/GM is prepared for anything.

FIFTH EDITION: D&amp;D has been updated many times since it first became available. The most recent edition to date is the fifth, although many players prefer to use older versions depending on past experience, personal preference, or the complexity and needs of a given campaign.

NPCs: Non-Player Characters (actual acronym may vary). These characters are the catalysts and plot devices that guide, torment and challenge the players in-game, being the mere puppets and tools the DM uses to keep the story - and the players - on the right path.

O.P.: Over-Powered. This is what happens when the DM lowers the bar on character development - the players will hop right over it and use their ridiculous stats and unrealistic advantages to gain control over the story. Very few people like playing with these types of characters, as they often end up ruining the experience for everybody else.

SESSION: D&amp;D is played whenever the DM is able to get the group together. These meetings are called sessions, and they can vary wildly in terms of how long they last, how much gets done and how many snacks and alcoholic beverages are devoured in the meantime.

TEPHRA: A steampunk reimagining of D&amp;D.

_If I failed to explain everything mentioned in this chapter, please let me know in your review! _


	2. Roll For Initiative

SESSION ONE – Roll For Initiative

_Selected Episode is "The Gypsy". Thanks, Atarah! For anyone who's still confused about how this story has anything to do with Hogan's Heroes, I'd suggest looking up the fan-made webcomics "DM of the Rings" and "Darths &amp; Droids". This is basically a written version of such parodies, based around the actual source material with a "behind the scenes"/"fragmented narration" style of storytelling.  
_

_-break-_

"Okay, are we ready to get started?"

Several days had passed between the first meeting and now, allowing everyone to get associated with their characters and the new world before they dived in. Judging from the other players' feedback, they were just as excited as Jack was for this first mission to get underway. Now, at 12:30PM one week later, the pizzas had been served, slices taken, and soda poured, all the makings of a very happy group of D&amp;D nerds. A following chorus of "Yep"s, "Yeah"s and "Ready when you are!" was the only go-ahead Jack Radke needed to open his binder, go to the first page of random mission descriptions, and read an introduction from the top of the list.

"You're all prisoners in a Nazi P.O.W. camp labeled Stalag Thirteen," he began, drawing on his inner history buff to get the narrative flowing, "The year is 1940-something. The outside temperature is cold; spring downpours are relentless and common. Surrounded by barbed wire with German soldiers and a single guard tower watching your every move, it takes the best of best to do what you do – run a top-secret operation under the very nose of the camp kommandant. You sabotage the enemy's technology and resources, collect intelligence and pass it on to the intelligence headquarters in London, and provide aid to those who wish to escape from the country, on the condition that you yourselves will not escape until the war is over.

"Today is an ordinary day. You wake up in a plain, crudely-designed bunk, rain dripping onto the floor of your barracks from cracks and holes in the weather-beaten roof. Icy wind blows through the door as a guard enters and calls everyone with a loud, unsympathetic yell, ordering you to fall out for roll call. A short time later, your presence has been counted. You are all relatively free for the moment."

Liam didn't waste a second. "I want to file a complaint with the Kommandant about the holes in the roof."

Jack blinked, having to think back for a moment to understand where this left-field action was coming from. "Don't you want to look at the area first?" he less-than-subtly suggested.

"Nope," Liam replied, insisting on beginning the story his way. "I'm the senior POW officer _and_ the leader of an espionage team. The last thing I need is for my guys to get sick, which is what happens when the roof is leaky and it's cold and raining all the time."

_Leave it to Liam to follow up on the one detail that has absolutely nothing to do with the story_, Jack thought and sighed inwardly as he made ready to slip into the NPC Kommandant's shoes a little sooner than he'd expected.

"Alright… What about you guys?" he asked the others, "Dora, what you doing?"

"Umm…" Dora thought for a moment. "I don't know… I guess Carter's hanging out with the other prisoners."

"Okay," Jack accepted, "What about you, Brian?"

"I'm going back down to the tunnel to watch the radio, in case we get any messages from London."

"Okay… Sarah?"

"I'm hanging out with Carter."

"Eli?"

"I," said the gnome-at-heart, already well into the role of an alluring Frenchman, regardless of his character's height or attributes, "am back in the barracks, writing a smexy love letter to my beautiful lady friend."

"Um… Okay," the DM commented dubiously before tossing his die once more to decide the kommandant's action, "Liam, roll for initiative."

"Ten."

"Okay, you go ahead."

Liam cleared his throat and finished off his first glass of Strawberry Crush before slipping into his character, Colonel Robert E. Hogan of the US Army Air Corps.

"Okay, dude –"

"Kommandant," Jack corrected him.

"Kommandant," Liam repaired his cold-open, "Whatever… What's his name?"

"Colonel Wilhelm Klink," Jack said, reading off the top of the NPC's character chart.

"Klink?" Liam echoed with a laugh.

"Hey, don't hate," the DM told him; he'd been admittedly a bit lazy – and a tad uninvested – when designing the character, but the name seemed plausible enough, even afterward, to remain cannon.

"Okay, whatever," Liam dismissed the argument, allowing himself one last snicker before attempting to get back into character. "I'm just going to jump right in; I give no fucks.

"Right now, there are at least a dozen holes in the roof," he informed the NPC, his tone reflecting the annoyance of a man who had woken up drenched in rainwater, "You've been promising to fix it for months."

"Are you trying to convince him or intimidate him?" Jack inquired.

"Um," Liam thought for a moment, "I'll try to convince him first."

"Check your charisma."

Liam rolled his D20, tossing it into the air and letting it land on Eli's character sheet. Leaning over to look at it, he made a face. "Nat one."

"What's your modifier?"

"Four," Liam said, cringing his near-failure.

Jack turned on his narrative voice. "Your point is valid, but the kommandant is uninterested. He doesn't even pay attention to what you're saying and continues filling out paperwork instead. After calling his name a couple times, you manage to get his attention.

"Hogan, what are you doing?" he demanded in with an irritated German accent.

"I was asking about a new roof," the player summarized.

"I'll look into it. Dismissed!" Jack put the senior officer down with a dramatic wave of his hand, and Liam scowled, trying to think of something, anything else he could do to keep the story moving.

"Can I spot-check the room?"

"Yeah, go ahead."

Liam rolled a thirteen out of twenty. Jack checked his mission summary before responding.

"There is nothing interesting or useful in the room. Colonel Klink gets up from his desk, carrying a poster with him from his desk to put on his wall."

"That's it?"

Jack sighed, but gave in anyway. He had a reputation for being a pretty relaxed DM for a reason, after all, and Liam _had_ rolled a thirteen. "It's an astrology chart," he added.

"Oh, that's right! Wasn't Hitler really into that?" Liam asked, his character dropped for the sake of conversation.

"Mm-hm," Jack replied, "And Gerring and Himmler."

"Plot twist!" Eli interjected, "They're all using the same astrologer!"

Liam grinned facetiously. "Oh, yeah," he agreed, taking the idea and rolling with it, "They could probably get, like, a group discount or something."

"Can you picture them all hopping into a jeep with Klink and carpooling to their appointment?" Sarah asked, also joining in on the fun.

"Hey, it'd save on gas money," Liam shrugged and laughed.

"God dammit," Jack sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose to ward of the ghost of a typical, DM-induced headache. Nevertheless, he liked the joke and decided to join in. "Liam, is your character actually suggesting this?"

"Sure, why not?"

Jack theatrically smacked a mechanical pencil against the edge of the table, sending it flying out of his hands and into the air. Ignoring it, save for a blink of defensive reflex, he snapped, "Colonel Hogan! I will not stand for this insubordination!"

"Can I spot-check the chart?" Liam asked.

"What is your obsession with the chart?" Jack demanded, "What more could there possibly be?"

"I don't know," the player said honestly, "Maybe there's roof repair in the kommandant's future."

Jack groaned. "Get out of Klink's office, Liam."

"Okay," Liam sighed, "I'm outside the office then. Spot check?"

"Sure."

Liam rolled fifteen.

"Outside Klink's office, there is a desk and a filing cabinet. A beautiful, blond secretary is doing her job."

"I want to interrogate the secretary."

Jack did his best to contain the frustration that Liam's non-stop straying continued to feed. He'd gone to all the trouble to write the description for the half-track vehicle outside, the German radar countermeasure device with all sorts of fun little dials and knobs on it, just begging to be tampered with and sabotaged… and all Colonel Hogan was interested in, apparently, was making friends.

"Do you have Gather Information?"

"Yeah."

"Roll for that."

Liam tossed his D20 yet again and scored a whopping ten, adding five points onto that thanks to his modifier and skill points.

"The secretary is friendly and very talkative," Jack described, "Klink takes fortune-telling very seriously. Every night, he goes to his astrologer, who told him that he might be promoted to general. He also believes that some people can be gifted and have a sixth sense."

Liam listened quietly as the DM shared all the Kommandant's secrets; Jack could almost see the gears turning as the player considered all of the loopholes and weaknesses that could be contrived from these tidbits.

"What happens next?"

"Klink leaves his office and walks outside, as if to meet somebody."

"I'm going outside," Liam followed quickly, "Spot check?"

At last! Jack nodded, masking his child-like giddiness that had been waiting for this moment and agreed calmly. "Please do."

Liam rolled and got twelve.

"There is a half-track parked in front of the office building," Jack described gleefully, his creativity finally unharnessed, "You can't see what's in it, but the black cross of the Luftwaffe is proudly painted on the side. Two soldiers are on top of the truck, attempting to spread a thick canvas sheet over the vehicle despite the strong breeze. Two more soldiers stand by and are greeted by Colonel Klink as he steps down from the porch."

"Can I get a closer look at the half-track?"

"Roll a spot check."

Liam rolled his dice and was rewarded with the number of failure.

Jack narrated. "Hogan approaches the half-track and stares at the side of it. Before he can master the art of seeing through walls, Klink spots him and tells him to get lost."

Liam made a face, but was not discouraged. "Can I talk to one of the soldiers?"

"Klink's talking to them."

"Can I talk to the one he's not talking to?"

"No, Liam," Jack insisted, "Klink's getting suspicious and you're a P.O.W."

The stymied roleplayer sighed and allowed the DM to have his moment. Jack, realizing that the other players hadn't really got a chance to play yet, felt a bit guilty and called for another initiative check. This time, Brian got to go first.

"Okay, Brian," Jack said, "What's… Wait, what's your character's name again?"

"I, um, haven't decided," the tall guy admitted, awkwardly plucking at the corner of his character sheet. "Either it's James Kinchloe or Robert Baker… I know he's a staff sergeant, but both names are really good and I don't want to waste either of them."

"Pick one."

"Uhhh…"

"Robert Baker sounds a little more normal," Dora suggested, trying to help.

"I guess," Brian shrugged, "Can I change it later?"

"I'll let you change it," Jack promised.

"Okay, then," Brian decided, "I'll go with Baker for now."

"Okay, Baker," Jack resumed, wanting to get past the preliminaries already, "What are you doing?"

"I ask Hogan about the half-track."

"I don't know anything," Liam reminded him.

"I wonder why they're covering it up," Sarah speculated. Although she had helped Jack when he was designing the world and served as an honest and critical sounding board, she was still in league with the other players and didn't know all that much about the missions themselves.

"It must be something real special," Dora suggested, eager to play with others now that she was beginning to better understand the gameplay.

"Yeah," Liam agreed with Dora, equally as eager to help her feel included in the team, "We'd better check it out."

"How?" Eli asked, abandoning his fantasy about love letters to ask the important questions in life.

Liam shrugged. "I thought of the idea," he pointed out to the other players, "I was hoping you guys would have the answer."


	3. Fantasy Football

SESSION TWO – Fantasy Football

_-break-_

After much talk and discussion over Skype, Facebook and multiple group text messages, the crew of players decided to take their chances with a simple diversion the following Wednesday.

"Okay," Jack said, nibbling on a bag of pretzels Dora had donated en lieu of pizza this week, "Are you guys still talking about that half-track?"

"Nope," Liam replied, now having become the unofficial spokesperson for the gang, "We're playing some good old-fashioned American Football."

"You… what?" The DM blinked, his face completely blank as he stared into the headlights of plot derailment.

"We're playing football," Eli repeated, "Prisoners get a few hours for outdoor recreation, right?"

"You're _prisoners_," Jack reminded him.

"I read it on Wikipedia, though," the short guy insisted, "P.O.W.s had to be allowed at least some time for recreation, according to the Geneva Convention. Even the Nazis couldn't shut people in a box and leave them there; that'd be inhumane."

"They were _Nazis_."

"So?"

Jack groaned and gave into the madness. "Fine," he muttered, "Play ball. Whatever."

"Okay," Liam announced, taking this victory and running with it, "Dora, you're the one who –"

"Carter," Dora reminded him quietly.

"Okay, Carter," Liam corrected himself, "Don't forget that you're the one with Magical Aptitude and Use Magical Device, so you're the one who needs to look under that tarp in case it's a weapon or anything techy."

"Okay," Dora nodded, "Do I do that now, or…?"

"Later," Liam told her with a quiet wink, ensuring her part in the conspiracy, "Just keep it in mind."

"Okay."

"I don't even know why I call myself DM anymore…" Jack muttered, pointedly reminding Liam that it wasn't his turn to run the story.

"I'm sorry, Jack," Liam apologized genuinely, "Is it okay if I help run this part?"

A moment passed as Jack considered the situation. "Yeah," he said, admitting temporary defeat, "Go ahead. Just let me know when you guys want to get back to the story."

"I promise, we're not forgetting the half-track," Liam assured his old high school buddy, knowing that in a few minutes, Jack would pull himself out of his current frustration and get back to being his jolly, enthusiastic old self. "Is it being guarded?"

"Yes," Jack confirmed, immediately seizing the opportunity to lure his players back to base, "There is one guard standing beside the truck. He's one of the prison guards, a sergeant, and he is watching you guys like a hawk."

"Do our characters know him?" Brian asked.

"Yes," Jack replied, "They know him. His name is Schulz and he don't take shit from nobody."

"Isn't that a donut shop by the campus?" Eli murmured to the player sitting beside him.

"No," Dora clarified, "That's a barbecue not far from my house. It's absolutely terrible, too; they don't even have napkins. You have to rip paper towels off a stand in the middle of the table."

"That's not so terrible."

"If I wanted to wipe my hands and face with a paper towel, I'd eat at home."

"Okay, come on now," Liam interrupted, rallying the troops, "Let's get this show on the road. Who has the ball?"

Sarah was the first to speak up, so naturally she had dibs. "I do."

"I'm going for it," Eli jumped in.

"I'm next in order," Brian reminded him.

Eli wasn't so easily daunted. "I have Combat Reflexes," he pointed out, "That gives me an attack of opportunity."

"Attacks of opportunity are only useful when you're in an adjacent square," Brian argued.

"Do you see any squares on this map?" Eli asked him. It was a common fault of Jack's that he often neglected to draw a proper grid on his maps, which made things like attacks of opportunity a bit tricky to play. Normally, the group managed by estimating square distance relative to the size of their tokens, which were each the circumference of a nickel.

Liam jumped into the argument and broke it up before the story became even more terribly derailed. "You'll get your chance, Brian. Eli, how are you attacking?"

"I'm trying to tackle Sarah and get the ball."

"You're small-sized, right?"

Eli took a moment to glance at his character sheet. "I'm four-and-a-half feet tall, so yeah, I guess."

"I think that's 1D2 for damage."

Dora raised her hand with a confused look on her face. "Wait a minute. D2? That's a two-sided die, isn't it? Do those even exist?"

"I honestly don't know," Liam admitted, "We usually just roll a D6 and count odds as ones and evens as twos."

"They do exist," Jack informed them, adding a touch of awe and enlightenment to the table of rogue elements, "I've seen 'em, although I don't have any myself. They're weird-looking, to say the least."

"How does that even work…?" Dora wondered.

"We can Google it later," Liam told her, eager to get back to the action. "Eli, roll a D6."

"Wait," Sarah stopped them, "Why is he rolling for damage?"

"I'm tackling you," Eli reminded her and checked his dice. "One."

"What's your modifier?" asked Liam.

Eli sadistically checked his states, only for his evil grin to be replaced with a look of sheepish disappointment. "Negative one."

"Goddamn, _mon ami_," Brian pointed out, "You suck."

"It was going to be nonlethal anyway," Eli remarked defensively, "You can't kill anybody with an unarmed tackle."

"I throw the ball," Sarah interrupted, not so eager to be attacked again, "I don't want to die today."

"Did you hit the target?"

Sarah tossed a D20. "Nope," she replied.

"Colonel Hogan catches the football and throws it again," Liam narrated, using his powers as the secondary DM to take control of the moment, "The football sails through the open air, landing on the far side of the half-track."

"Mine!" Dora declared, "I'm going after it!"

"Wait," Brian stopped her, "What about the guard?"

"Okay, everybody else, surround the guard," Eli instructed.

Jack was only a few millimeters away from executing the feat of Facepalm. "He has a gun, you guys."

"Uhh… Hey, Schulz!" Liam responded in character, quickly groping for a diversion, "How are you doing with the new bar maiden in town?"

Jack stared at him for a moment. "Are you trying to bluff?"

"Yes."

"Roll for it."

The D20 practically sailed from Liam's hand before clattering on the far side of the table, falling into Dora's lap. Scooting back so she could see it, the freshman tilted her head for a moment before announcing, "It's a ten."

"Sixteen, actually," Liam interjected, "I have a plus-six bluff check."

"Holy shit," Eli muttered reverently.

Jack rolled for Schulz's Sense Motive skill and shook his head in disbelief. All guard NPCs had one skill point in their Sense Motive for obvious reasons, but the way it looked, Schulz was a lot dumber than he'd planned. The players couldn't see behind the three-fold DM shield, but Jack was plainly confronted with the ugly spectacle of a natural 1+1, something that couldn't possibly compete with a 16 bluff check.

Taking a swig of his energy drink, Jack put on his strongest German accent yet and sold his dignity for the roll of the most oblivious Nazi in the Second World War.

"Ahh, Colonel Hogan," he uttered, in a voice that nearly caused Brian to drown himself in his soda with an uncontrollable onslaught of the giggles, "That woman is a hunk of weinerschnitzel!"

"What!?" Sarah laughed.

"But she's running around with a corporal," Jack continued to utter his drunken woes as Eli stifled his reaction with a handful of pretzels, "He's only got a few medals, but she is impressed…

"Dora, what are you doing?" he asked, falling out of character when he noticed the small Asian girl poring over her list of skills and attributes and tossing dice.

"Me? Oh, Carter?" she replied, confused at first, "I've gone around to the other side and I'm looking under the tarp."

"You have to do a spot check," Jack reminded her.

"I know," she said, "But I keep rolling twos and threes."

"What's your modifier?" Brian asked helpfully.

"One."

"Oh."

"Well, keep trying," Jack told her, throwing his dice again to see if he could catch her in the act.

Sarah quickly ran interference. "I offer him chocolate."

Jack looked at her strangely. "What's that going to do?"

"It's a bluff," she explained, rolling her dice as her boyfriend rolled his. "Eleven… plus one… plus two…"

"Plus two?" Jack demanded, willing to fight this thing tooth and nail if he had to. This guard was a Nazi soldier, by the gods; for him to be bluffed so easily by two really stupid tactics in a row was absolutely absurd.

"Newkirk has the Favored Enemy feat, remember?" Sarah pointed out, "That gives me another plus-two for my bluff check, and I've decided my favored enemy is the Nazis."

"Wha…?" Jack muttered, struggling to wrap his head around the hastily-growing web of pwnage.

"Okay, how did you guys get these insane bluff checks?" Eli demanded, "I barely had enough skill points to afford what I _do_ have."

"I think it has something to do with class and attributes," Sarah mentioned, "How high is your charisma?"

Jack prayed for a natural twenty before rolling for Sense Motive. Instead, the traitorous dice toppled precariously onto whatever number was on the opposite side of 3.

"Okay, Sarah... Um, wait... Yeah... Okay. He won't accept your offering while he's on duty," Jack announced, cheating his way to a middle ground while the others couldn't see his dice. Sarah made a face, refusing to believe that any Human alive, even a Nazi, could resist the siren song of chocolate.

"I bluff again," Liam volunteered, and rolled the natural twenty that Jack had so desired.

"God dammit," Jack muttered, before returning to narration. "You don't even have to say anything," he informed the prisoner ringleader, "Schulz is more than eager to tell you everything he knows about the new bar maiden. He also follows up on the offer for chocolate and claims a small piece for himself."

"Is it my turn again?" Dora pleaded, eager to do something successful before the guard rolled a better number.

"Yeah, go ahead."

"I'm doing another spot check." She spun the dice. "Ten… eleven?"

"There is some sort of antenna on top and a control panel in the side hatch."

"Can I get more details on the control panel?" Dora requested, hoping her small, sweet voice would be enough to convince the ginger-haired, soulless DM to throw her a bone.

"The control panel," Jack informed her, "looks very technical and has a lot of dials and switches."

"What kind of dials and switches?" Brian interrupted.

"Dials and switches," the DM insisted, giving Brian a dirty glance, "Baker's not the one looking."

"But that's it?" Dora whimpered.

"There are some German words on there as well."

"Oh, you're a bloody fountain of information, you are," Sarah protested, also teaming up on the unrelenting gamemaster.

"Look, I'm not going to sit here for hours making diagrams for you guys," Jack defended himself, "She rolled eleven, not a twenty. Sarah, Liam, are you guys still bluffing the guard?"

"Yes," both answered simultaneously.

"Roll again."

Two D20s clattered across the map this time, one landing neatly in the center of the table while the other escaped from its cruel master and dived to the floor, striking a chair leg and rolling under the table. Eli voluntarily ducked after it, calling out the nat-twenty while Sarah muttered her sad roll of five, making her check a mediocre eight.

"The chocolate no longer interests Sergeant Schulz," Jack interpreted, "However, he continues talking to Hogan, discussing the game they were playing and remarking on Carter's speed before remembering that he last saw Carter running behind the half-track."

"What!?" Dora squeaked nervously.

Engaging hero mode, Liam tossed his D20 across the table again. "I tell him he's looking for the ball."

"It's not your turn, Liam," Jack stopped him, "The guard is moving to the other side of the half-track."

"Can we attack him?" Eli asked nervously.

Brian, Sarah and Liam all gave him a weary look. "We're P.O.W.s… in a prisoner camp… with Nazis," Brian clarified, reminding the wannabe-Frenchman of the narration they'd received at the start of the game.

"Oh," Eli said, still wanting to find a way to help Dora before the guard found her. "Can I warn her?"

"Him," Dora pointed out quietly.

"Do you want to be rescued or not?" Eli retorted.

"How are you going to do it?" Jack asked, "The guard can still hear you."

"I'm small," Eli mentioned, thinking rapidly as he talked, "Can I crawl under the truck and warn Carter before the guard gets there?"

"It is a shorter distance," Brian pointed out, "But he'd be crawling."

"I'll allow it," Jack permitted graciously, waxing beneficence, "But do a stealth check first; the guards are watching."

Eli rolled his dice, praying he'd score a high number; he'd sort of neglected to add points to his stealth skill in the same pencil stroke that left him without a bluff check. "Eight?" he announced uncertainly.

"You're successful," the DM decreed, "Carter has been warned."

"Can I use…" Dora asked, checking her feats and skills as she did so, "my Knowledge – Architecture skill to identify the gadget?"

"Go for it," Jack suggested, evilly neglecting to mention that there was no way for her to do that and escape in time to avoid detection by the guard.

Dora, none the wiser, tossed her dice and grimaced uncertainly. "Six?" she said doubtfully, adding the one on the die with her plus-five skill check.

"Upon closer inspection of the dials and switches," Jack narrated, "You can safely say that what you're looking at is a control panel."

"Oh, come on!"

"Meanwhile," he continued, springing his trap on the innocent character, "Schulz has walked around the truck and spotted you and LeBeau beneath the tarp."

"It's the wind!" Liam interrupted, desperate to spare the team's most tech-savvy member long enough for her to share her findings in-game.

"Is that a bluff?" Jack inquired.

"Yes," Liam replied, rolling his D20 with sass and defiance, "Eighteen! What what!"

"That's a very lumpy wind," Jack protested.

"You're getting jumpy, Schulz," Liam insisted, "That _is_ a wind."

"Yeah?" Jack argued, determined to fight this, "So, what next? Perhaps the half-track's haunted?"

"While you two are busy arguing," Eli mentioned in passing, "It's pretty safe to say that Carter and LeBeau have gone under the half-track and disappeared."

Jack shot Eli a scalding look. "Roll for initiative," he ordered everyone, preemptively rolling a spot check as well.

"I approach Schulz with the ball in my hand," Dora quickly told him, then explained, "I rolled a twenty, plus two in my attributes."

"Yeah," Liam confirmed triumphantly, a sarcastic, insulting grin on his effeminate face, "I think it is haunted, Schulz."

"We still don't know jack about what's under there," Sarah reminded everyone, tossing the DM a resentful glance for his stingy descriptions.

"Well, shit," Liam sighed.

A period of silence and random chatter followed, eating up fifteen minutes of the players' precious time. While the clock kept ticking and wasting, Eli and Liam, the most experienced player next to Brian and Jack, began to conspire a Plan B while the DM was distracted by Sarah and the others with a conversation about the difficulty with creating and hosting servers in Terraria's needlessly-complicated multiplayer mode.

"Hey," Eli asked, looking up from his empty equipment sheet, "Jack, how much gold do I have?"

"I think you mean German Marks," the red-head reminded him.

"Okay, whatever," Eli responded, brushing aside the correction, "Can I buy something real quick?"

Jack squirmed, sensing the tangled web the player was trying to set. "What do you want to buy?"

"A camera."

"… What?"

"A camera. You know, like one of those hand-held spy cameras from the 1940s," Eli elaborated.

"Uh, no." Jack assured himself he would stand firm on this one. Cameras would obviously not have been allowed in P.O.W. camps, anyway, so it was totally unrealistic to let Eli have one for whatever nefarious reasons his character wanted it for.

"But Dadke," Liam pleaded, wielding a playful nickname he often used, born out of the son-father/babysitter dynamic between a player and a DM.

"It actually does makes a lot of sense," Sarah pointed out, taking a fair and tactful position, "Our characters may be in a prison camp, but they're still spies, and you gave them a tunnel and a two-way radio already. It doesn't make sense that we _wouldn't_ have anything else, really."

Jack was faltering, slipping. He could feel himself losing his grip on this story and, by association, any chance he may have had to redirect the characters toward the train tracks of the original campaign.

"Come on, man," Liam begged him, "How much?"

Jack Radke sighed, taking another swig of liquid heart-attack. "Just take it," he told Eli, "I'm done trying to fight this."

"Hooray!" Eli cheered.

"But," Jack warned him, "You only have a limited number of film."

"Game," Eli assured him, "How much do I have?"

Jack was honestly winging it by this pointand pulled a number out of thin air. "I dunno… Three."

"I can work with that."

"Hey, guys!" Liam called to the other players, rallying them back into action, "Eli got a camera. We can make this work."

Eli gave Liam an apprehensive glance before noting the camera and amount of film in his inventory. "I just realized… Schulz won't let us go near that half-track –"

"Yes, he will," Liam said confidently, "If we ask him nicely."

"Watch me," Jack challenged, his words holding all the ferocity of a caged tiger being poked at with sharp sticks. He'd had just about enough of these shenanigans; he was more than ready, in fact, to unleash a can of Nazi whoop-ass upon the players should he get the chance.

Liam rolled his dice and proudly displayed his unmodified nat-twenty.

Jack finished off the remainders of his energy drink and rolled to Sense Motive.

"Fuck."

_-break-_

_Author's Note: A guest on the site commented, rightly so, that Jack Radke should have used GURPS (Generic Universal Role Playing System) instead of D&amp;D to create this universe. I couldn't agree more and, should I decide to convert my favorite show into a tabletop RPG, that's certainly what I'll use. Unfortunately, it is safe to assume that Jack is very, very lazy when it comes to designing a universe, very much like the inspiration of the man I know in real life. He's much more likely to say, "Fuck it. Let's do things the easy way," than to bother taking the time to learn the proper way._

_I'll be updating the story again in a few days; my other HH fic needs some serious attention right now._

_Question for the readers: I wasn't sure how to make sense of the whole Baker/Kinchloe problem, especially considering that the elected episode has Baker in it. Originally, I thought I could start with Kinchloe and then bring in a guest roleplayer who replaces Kinchloe (and Brian) with the temporary character Baker. It happened in my own D&amp;D group when an important character's player, a Dwarven bard, couldn't make it to the session and had to be replaced with a borrowed player from another group and a similar but slightly different Dwarven bard during his absence. Unfortunately, the first elected episode features Baker, which means Brian has to start with the replacement character._

_I'm not sure how to work around this. Brian's indecision about the name feels like too much of a cop-out, as well as a bit insulting to both Kinchloe and Baker. Baker may have been a cheap replacement for his predecessor, but the two certainly weren't identical, and Kinchloe had character traits and a backstory that made him as much of an individual as the other characters._

_Should I go with a reversal of the original idea and have Brian replaced with another player when I'm translating an episode with Kinchloe in it, or is there a better alternative that I'm not seeing?_


End file.
